Michele Bachmann retiring under fire

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) — the tea-party firebrand facing investigations and a daunting reelection race — abruptly announced on Wednesday morning that she will not seek reelection to a fifth term.

Her move marked a spectacular fall for a congresswoman with a bull’s eye on her back every congressional cycle: Less than two years ago, she won the Iowa straw poll and was briefly regarded as a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination.

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Bachmann, 57, who took office in 2007, said in a video posted on her website: “My good friends: After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth congressional term to represent the wonderful people of the Sixth District of Minnesota. After serious consideration, I am confident that this is the right decision.”

The congresswoman added on the eight-and-a-half-minute video: “[T]he law limits anyone from serving as president of the United States for more than eight years. And in my opinion, well, eight years is also long enough for any individual to serve as a representative for a specific congressional district.”

With Bachmann’s departure, the tea party’s voice in Congress will dim. She is the movement’s third big-name figure in recent months to leave Congress — Jim DeMint of South Carolina resigned from the Senate in January to take over the Heritage Foundation. And in November, Florida Rep. Allen West, another conservative bomb thrower, lost reelection.

Ironically, the retirement may improve Republicans’ chances of holding Minnesota’s conservative 6th Congressional District, which broke for Mitt Romney by nearly 15 percentage points in 2012. Democrats had Bachmann at the top of their target list after she barely survived reelection last year. The Democrat who came close to defeating her, Jim Graves, was gearing up for a rematch.

Bachmann’s decision comes as she faces a growing swirl of investigations into her campaign finances, with the The Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics opening investigations into whether her campaign concealed payments to an Iowa state senator who did work for her 2012 presidential bid. Last week, the FBI reportedly joined the inquiry.

In Graves, she was up against an opponent who came within 5,000 votes — or 1.2 percent points — of unseating her last November. Graves, a wealthy hotel company executive who poured $250,000 of his own funds into the 2012 contest, released a poll last week showing him with a narrow lead over the congresswoman.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which provided Graves with little help in 2012, had indicated that it planned to get behind the challenger aggressively in Round Two. Though Bachmann would have had an enormous war chest, the defeat of West — another tea party hero with a national following and big money — showed that such figures are not invincible.

Potential Republican candidates for the seat include state Reps. Tim Sanders and Matt Dean, state Sen. Michelle Fischbach, and St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis.

In the video released Wednesday morning, Bachmann insisted that her decision to not seek reelection had nothing to do with the Graves challenge, nor from the investigations. Bachmann aides have repeatedly said the congresswoman has done nothing improper.

“Be assured: My decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being reelected to Congress. … I have every confidence that if I ran, I would again defeat the individual who I defeated last year, who recently announced he is once again running.